Goblins & The Grove

We've been helping Dungeon Masters run the Sunless Citadel in Tales from the Yawning Portal, aka the Sunken Citadel, aka Dragon Gate and we've made it to the goblins. They control the other half of the Fortress level, as well as the entrance to the Grove level below. Unless the player characters ignored the kobold's advice and managed to unlock the two doors through 24, the first time they come across the goblins will be in room 31, 32, and 33. Now it is definitely possible that the players decide to negotiate or deceive the goblin faction eventually, but the adventure makes that difficult at first because these goblins are playing defense. Thanks to the half walls in both encounters, these goblins have cover, giving them a +2 to AC, and they're going to use Nimble Escape to bonus action hide after they fire off an arrow each round. By the time your players fight their way through this gauntlet, it seems unlikely that they'll be interested in talking to goblins.

But that's OK because they've got somebody else to talk to in 34: Erky Timbers. I don't know why, maybe it's something about the picture of him, but Erky's voice in my head is a little early Beatles, with the accent, and the up talk. This is a technique worth learning from, not the bad voice, but the friendly NPC well inside hostile territory. Even if the players kill all the kobolds and goblins in here, I'd bet they talk to old Erky and you can drop all the knowledge you need. He also represents a real asset to the party. Not only is he an acolyte who can cast bless and cure wounds, he's also got turn undead, which will let them into the sanctuary if they couldn't manage it yet. If Meepo's around now we've got two NPCs traveling with the party and I might consider letting players control them. Not only is this potentially more fun for them, unlocking another character that they get to play, it takes some work off of your plate, and it is excellent Dungeon Master training. You're going to have to teach your players how to take their turn behind the DM's screen if you ever want to use that character you've been dreaming of.

Erky Timbers is also a great way to tie things into the next adventure, or side quests. Maybe he was trying to find Kundrakar when the goblins snatched him up off the road, and now we've planted our first sign post to the Forge of Fury. In my game he led my players to Gnomengarde from Dragon of Icespire peak. By the way, if you merged Oakhurst with Phandolin then the goblins down here could be connected to the Cragmaw, or be their rivals. If you run this first then the remnants could become the Cragmaw, or vice versa. A lot of DMing is thinking up connections to the shifting facts on the ground, and it's one of my favorite parts. Like if Calcryx makes it out of this in one piece she could easily be merged with Cryovain, and if she doesn't make it, maybe she was his daughter, the kobolds snatched her up, maybe as an egg, and that made Cryovain angry. Connect the dots.

I love the image of the trophy room with mounted cows and rats, where this little dragon has collected all the treasure into a tiny hoard for herself. Even though we're probably hit level 2 by now, a well placed breath weapon could end this campaign in here. I have Meepo rush in, delusionally thinking his lost love is going to be happy to see him and boom, he gets frozen solid and shatters like the T1000. Now the players know what she can do and will take this fight seriously, if they don't decide to talk this one out. I said it earlier, recurring characters are dungeon master gold and that applies double to a chromatic dragon, so don't feel too bad if you don't get to run a white dragon wyrmling in battle this time around, that only means you can throw a young white dragon at them later.

One other thing in the trophy room, this scroll case that says Khundrukar and has a snippet about Durgeddin, well the book says even most dwarves won't make sense of it. If you want the party heading to the Forge of Fury next, or at least you are putting that on the table, I would definitely have the dwarf in your party know all about Khundrukar and I'd put a map to the Stone Tooth in that scroll case. If you don't have a dwarf, Erky can deliver some history if he's here, otherwise a map is maybe enough to set the stage for level 3 and beyond.

The party might keep heading forward, but at this point, alive or dead, the party could be bringing the dragon and Meepo back to Yusdrayl where they'll collect the key and run to the Dragon Door and 7-12 which we already covered. Before or after that they might take a long rest or two, and even head back to town. If that's the case, and it's been a day or two, or even more, since they killed a bunch of goblins, freed some prisoners, and/or took their draconic prize, I think more guards would be in 32 and 33. That's just my style. I'm not adversarial, but I do like to drive home that this isn't a video game where monsters just sit and wait in their assigned room until heroes come and kill them, but that this is a living breathing world. Including the original 5 in the Goblin Gate and Practice Range, there are 18 vanilla goblin warriors on this level. At least as written, you can of course add and subtract as needed.

The adventure does provide us with some good material for a diplomatic approach in room 41. The shaman isn't happy with the hobgoblin leadership, and is no fan of Belak either, so the stage is set for some intrigue, deal-making, and back stabbing. I might have the players overhear some conversation somewhere conveying this before they bust into the final room here. Maybe in Goblintown, where I hope they don't do a genocide on all of the commoners for your sake. Dexterity save against getting crushed by a stampede seems a good response if that's the way things are going down. Anyway, otherwise odds are the players are coming into the Hall of the Chief looking for a fight and the second she casts a spell the players are likely taking out that shaman before the chief falls. Again, make the extra effort to offer the players different options but stay flexible and roll with their choices. They probably won't be kill all the innocents, right?

I like that the treasure here tells a story. We find one of the signet rings we're looking for, but also the fighter's armor, being worn by this hobgoblin chief. Make connections, stack functions, marry mechanics and story, that's good adventure design. What I don't love about this room is that there's a well leading down to the next level. The grove is still definitely part of the dragon temple, so I added a spiral staircase going down, only extending down one story because it wasn't 80 feet down until this place sunk catastrophically into the earth. With that detail or without it, the players are heading down to the lower level and the finale of this adventure.

Except it's not really the finale, we're actually just a little over halfway there. The adventure almost resets and goes back into exploration mode, so you're going to have to gauge the players and the time left on the clock and decide how you want to pace things. We can also try to control expectations, and have the goblins let the players know somewhere along the way that what's downstairs is larger than the goblin controlled area upstairs. Maybe I'm drawing too much from personal experience, but the players might climb down these vines anticipating the final confrontation when in fact they're walking into the slow burn of horror movie...

First we get Balsag and his “hounds,” which are fun but simply combat, though they may be hunting down in the Underdark. We already prepared for that a bit in the last one, but if you used up that material already reach for Appendix B in the Dungeon Masters guide and grab a couple Underdark Monsters. Dark mantles and piercers are fun, or maybe they meet some Mycanoids to talk to.

I like the way 44, 45, and 46 look on the map, but I'm not exactly riveted by the empty shrine the players will explore the heck out of and leave convinced they missed something, so I might take the gem from the fire snake, or another one, and stick it on that tray in the dragon's mouth. Anything the players missed could go there too, like a spell scroll or the map to the Stone Tooth. I also don't love how the rift forms a secret shortcut back way to... exactly where we'd go otherwise. If you want to be brave, you can connect it to the Twilight Grove instead. I chickened out and only went halfway, having a crack provide an obstructed view to the Gulthias Tree without being wide enough to reach it.

Now, 47, 48, and 49 are actually covering 14 rooms, and this is where you can really ratchet up the creepy factor for the players. It's also where you can edit things down, because even without a lot going on, 14 rooms can take a while to get through and might kill the momentum as easily as they could build tension. I would consider picking out your favorite highlights and fast-forwarding over the rest. I love the goblins making wine, and I think the mad scientist rat experiment builds the story, plus there's that vial just begging someone to drink it in there. I like the bugbear scything the grass too, I'd make her, and all the goblins down here, a little weirder and creepier than what we found upstairs. These are a bunch of Igor's to Belak's Dr Frankenstein, eating fungus and not seeing the sun for who knows how long.

Now in 50, the players might just run right by this dragon statue with glowing red eyes and I can't blame them. What's this charisma buff for anyway? They're not convincing Belak of much, the time for talk is over. Shadows are one of the scariest low level monsters by the way. They've got good flavor and they hit you right in the ability scores. Make sure the player knows, “hey, this thing just took your strength down by two, and if you hit zero that's it,” to really put the fear in them.

I've said that I like that this module is generous with the treasure but I don't love that there's valuable stuff just lying around in this library room that our big bad has to have been through a million times before. Wouldn't they be in his study with the other treasure? Oh well, your call. Also feel free to put a lore drop in either location as well if you want to set the stage for something else going on in your game world and tee up the next adventure.

OK, home stretch, we get four goblins, then four twig blights, then we're onto the big dance. Don't ever expect your big bad to get a chance to finish a monologue if he's in range of your player characters. It would be great if he delivers all of this information, but always good to have fail safes when your trying to get knowledge to your players, so this guy probably kept a journal where he recorded all of this as well, and an insight check or Erky “shiver me” Timbers could figure some of it out too.

This should be a fun fight, with the briars and busted walls bringing interesting terrain, Sir Bradford swinging shaterspike and trying to destroy someone's weapon while protecting Sharwyn, who's tossing color spray and sleep at the party, and don't forget the giant frog from the top rope trying to swallow somebody. It says Belak is casting entangle, which is fine, but he's also going to get that flaming sphere out first and move it around as a bonus action, come on. I bet when he casts a cure wounds on the fallen wizard or paladin your players have a meltdown. Enjoy that. As you can see you're going to have a lot of moving pieces so get organized for this one. Definitely consider handing over any friendly NPCs to the players if you haven't already. Have all of your stat blocks in front of you so you're not flipping pages, and maybe see if you can't end a session on a cliffhanger so you can start fresh with this fight. I know personally I'm more likely to make mistakes or forget the cool stuff my monsters can do at the end of a long night. Plus, that's always a great way to end a session anyway and keep everybody excited all week for game night.

Now the adventure seems to assume that the players will attack the Gulthias Tree. You can call for the check to deduce taking out the tree will have an effect on the blights and thralls, but what I did is I had the 1d4-1 twig blights per round dropping from the tree itself, instead of just running over from the other side of the room so that the tree is clearly a threat. Even so, the tree was the last to go down for my group. Keep dropping twig blights from it and they'll burn it down, I promise. If the players really want to rescue Sir Bradford and Sherwyn, I'd probably let them even though the book says no. You're the Dungeon Master, this is your world, use it to make your players feel like heroes.

Also use it to shock and dismay them as the withering Gulthias Tree releases a vampire, who bows to them in thanks, transforms into a bat, and flies away. You know, if you want to. As written the adventure invokes the complication of the twig blights already being released into the world, and you could definitely craft an adventure where this area transforms into a jungle with ever more difficult plant monsters for the Player Characters to thwart. There's also the question of who controls the Sunless Citadel after the heroes are through with it, because it could be Kobold country now, and maybe they find a new dragon to raise. What could possibly go wrong? We've got two gates into the Underdark, and the vampire of course if you followed my advice, so there's plenty of adventure to be had. Erky Timbers, and the Matron from the Rescue Mission are great sources for potential plot hook delivery systems as well. You've got a ton of options, but originally, and in Tales from the Yawning Portal, the Sunless Citadel is followed by the Forge of Fury, which I really enjoyed running and I'm going to help you prep for in the next series. Maybe check out some of my low level work on the DMsGuild to fold into these adventure in the meantime.

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